Executive Order 8802
Executive Order 8802, issued on June 18, 1941, was a significant milestone in the fight against employment discrimination in the United States, specifically within defense industries during World War II. The order arose in response to widespread discrimination against African Americans, who were largely relegated to low-skilled jobs despite their qualifications. Influenced by activists like A. Philip Randolph, the order mandated federal agencies to ensure non-discriminatory hiring practices in military production contracts. It established the Fair Employment Practices Commission, tasked with investigating discrimination complaints and promoting compliance within the industry. The issuance of this order alleviated the immediate threat of a March on Washington organized by civil rights advocates, highlighting the growing demand for equal employment opportunities. While Executive Order 8802 laid the groundwork for future civil rights advancements, including subsequent orders that further expanded anti-discrimination measures, it also revealed persistent racial tensions, exemplified by events such as the Detroit race riot in 1943. Overall, this executive order marked a crucial step toward addressing systemic inequalities and set the stage for affirmative action policies in the decades that followed.
Executive Order 8802
The Law Presidential order that prohibited racial discrimination in government and in the defense industry
Date Signed on June 25, 1941
Prior to Executive Order 8802, African Americans were often excluded from employment by private corporations under contract with the federal government to produce goods for military use by Great Britain at the beginning of World War II. As a result of this law, companies were required to hire more African Americans or risk loss of their contracts at a time when American corporations had not fully recovered from the Depression and were in need of business opportunities that the government alone could provide.
In 1941, Congress approved military production contracts for the Lend-Lease program to support the Allied war effort, resulting in the creation of thousands of American jobs. Most companies, however, refused to hire fully qualified African Americans for skilled jobs; instead, African Americans were considered fit only for positions as janitors. Black leaders such as A. Philip Randolph were incensed about this discrimination. Although Eleanor Roosevelt communicated Randolph’s complaint to her husband, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, nothing was done in response. Accordingly, African American leaders began to organize a March on Washington to protest racial discrimination and to demand that hiring be done in a nondiscriminatory way.
On June 18, 1941, Randolph met President Roosevelt in the White House, insisting that an executive order be issued to prohibit employment discrimination by military contractors. When Randolph informed the president that 100,000 protesters were ready to march if the order were not signed, the president agreed to the executive order.
Executive Order 8802 required federal agencies and departments responsible for military production to monitor vocational and training programs so that those enrolled would be selected without discrimination on the basis of “race, creed, color, or national origin.” Defense contracts had a similar provision prohibiting discrimination in employment.
A Fair Employment Practices Commission was established by Executive Order 8802 within the Office of Production Management. The commission had responsibility to investigate allegations of discrimination and was empowered “to take appropriate steps to redress grievances that it finds to be valid.” The commission also reviewed developments within the industry through site visits and other fact-finding actions in order to develop recommendations on the most effective measures to promote compliance.
Impact
The threatened March on Washington was suspended after Executive Order 8802 was issued. Subsequently, President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981 in 1948, which expanded on Roosevelt’s order. In the same vein, stronger executive orders were issued by later presidents, the most comprehensive of which was Executive Order 11246, signed by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965.
African Americans were indeed hired throughout World War II on military contracts. In 1943, after a fistfight broke out in Detroit because whites resisted the hiring of African Americans at one of the automobile companies, a large-scale race riot developed. In response, military contractors agreed to hire African Americans on every work crew, sometimes on the basis of “hire now, train later.” Executive Order 8802 set the stage for the eventual development of affirmative action plans for all federal contractors, not just military contractors, from the 1960’s to the present.
Bibliography
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Miller, Calvin Craig. A. Philip Randolph and the African-American Labor Movement. Greensboro, N.C.: Morgan Reynolds, 2005.
Milleson, Debra A. “W(h)ither Affirmative Action: The Future of Executive Order 11,246.” University of Memphis Law Review 29 (Spring/Summer, 1999): 679-737.